FILE PHOTO
Image Credit: PEXELS
June 12, 2024 - 11:15 AM
The lack of an acute Cardiac Care Diagnostic Lab at Royal Inland Hospital is costing lives, according to the ICCHA Wish Fund.
In a media release, June 12, the wish fund is demanding the province and Interior Health add a catheterization lab for cardiac patients.
The hospital in Kamloops, which is considered a tertiary level hospital serving the surrounding region, must send people having heart attacks to Kelowna General Hospital in what the foundation said is a gruelling 2.5 hour ambulance ride away.
READ MORE: JONESIE: How Canadian news became victims in its own story
“In urgent cases, patients must be flown to Kelowna or the Lower Mainland, wasting precious minutes that could mean the difference between life and death,” the release read.
The wish fund said Kamloops is the third fastest growing city in Canada with an aging population in need of life-saving cardiac care. It said in the Thompson Regional District there are 250 heart monitors but only four beds for critically ill cardiac patients.
"Patients have died in the ER waiting for services and ambulances,” Wish Fund founder Al Patel said in the release.
“This current strategy of sending patients to Kelowna General Hospital is causing unnecessary delays and preventable deaths. Families are left grieving because of this broken system.”
Interior Health has told the wish fund that Kamloops will have to wait until 2040 for the cath lab, some the foundation and its partners call “outrageous and unacceptable.”
An online petition has been created that demands the government bring an acute Cardiac Care Diagnostic Lab to Kamloops.
"This is a call to arms, Kamloops! We need your help to save lives from heart attacks — the #1 killer — where every second counts,” the release read.
Go here to sign the petition.
— This story was corrected at 8:05 a.m. Thursday, June 12, 2024 to say the RIH Foundation and TRU are not involved in the petition. The Wish Fund media release incorrectly included the foundation and university.
To contact a reporter for this story, email Howard Alexander or call 250-309-5343 or email the editor. You can also submit photos, videos or news tips to the newsroom and be entered to win a monthly prize draw.
We welcome your comments and opinions on our stories but play nice. We won't censor or delete comments unless they contain off-topic statements or links, unnecessary vulgarity, false facts, spam or obviously fake profiles. If you have any concerns about what you see in comments, email the editor in the link above. SUBSCRIBE to our awesome newsletter here.
News from © iNFOnews, 2024